For starters I’m not enfatuated with any pet. Could care less. Ur obviously not able to follow simple logic let me go slower
There will always be a few best options in pets unless blizz stops tying pet moves to to transmogs
Blizzard isn’t changing it atm
If you nerf what is good your nerfing our class potential due to blizzard still not giving us any better options
If you nerf our top potential pets ur nerfing the spec/class…
if you buff other pets to be in line with spirit beasts and ms/freedom pets and haste buff pets then your now giving a real solution…you haven’t suggested this one at all
You think you are smarter than others but have suggested no fix that doesn’t nerf us in our current state as blizz has said no notes on making pets not be locked
Stop pretending your ideas are original and stop projecting ur mis-understandings of what people are saying onto them. I never once said I want pet locking to a moves list. I prefer I believe it was lich king expac where pets had a tree and what they looked like didn’t matter. But even then there was a best moves list talent tree you had to choose. People will always go with the strongest thing as you urself have pointed out
No one has argued with you that they like being pet locked. You’ve got it in your head were all against what you like and we all side with blizz. This isn’t true. I personally rarely side with blizzard. Blizz is not fixing this that they have stated take your argument to them. But don’t tell us to nerf our only good options your only making us weaker till blizz fixes the real problem. Common sense dude
Further yeah it sucks we only had 2 pets really usable much in arena as well no one enjoys that…but nerfing one of our only 2 good options leaves us with one good option
You understand that nerfs and buffs don’t happen in isolation, right? Like, they can nerf a pet and make up for it in the spec in other ways, if they think it then underperforms. Defending a clear imbalance between pets, or advocating that they should all be as hilariously strong as spirit beasts were, just so we don’t get “nerfed”, is naivety at its finest.
Speaking of misunderstandings, could you please highlight/quote where I said they were original? I’ve been advocating these ideas because I think they are the best solution to the problem, not because I personally came up with them and lay claim to them. Most of the best ideas floating around these parts are the cooperative brainchild of many different minds thinking, and discussing, together.
Yes, and either earlier in this thread or in another related thread, I spelled out that my preference would be for pets to gain a mini talent grid (though I’d have it work like our current talents rather than like the previous talent trees), with either 3 or 4 rows. One would let you select the pet’s offensive utility (MS, snare, tongues). One would let you select the pet’s defensive (amongst the existing flavors of defensive cooldowns, preferably better balanced). One would let you select the pet’s active ability (Lust, SotF, Master’s Call). The final one, if it wasn’t tied to the active ability selection, would be selecting the passive benefit (leech, max HP, movement speed).
Every single pet would have the same tree, but the exact ability used for the offensive and defensive abilities would depend on pet family (example, Shell Shield for turtles, Obsidian Skin for Corehounds, Defense Matrix for Mechanicals, etc). Pet spec is gone, as we now have the ability to select the utility from it in a much more nuanced and intuitive way. And since every pet has the same grid, pet choice is entirely up to the hunter.
As for BM, they would have a 5th talent row for their pets, with additional powerful abilities, which are again available to any pet they are running. Thus their pet mastery would effectively be split into two effects: can tame beasts that other hunters cannot, and can train their pets to do things other hunters cannot.
That is my preference. However, failing that, I am definitely in favor of pets being more balanced. Spirit beasts were a clear outlier.
You yourself already pointed out that spirit beasts are used less than half the time in PvP, so clearly it’s not “our only good option”. Second, as above, whether the top option gets nerfed or the bottom gets brought up depends on where that pet is compared to where Blizzard wants their power level to be. Clearly they thought the spirit beast was an overperformer rather than the other pets underperformers.
And again, nerfs can easily be offset via other means, like for example our new legendary that gives us a 15s cooldown complete self-cleanse. We also got a conduit that essentially bakes in old Spirit Mend into Exhilaration (30% additional HP over 8s at max rank), and using the combination of CDRs available to us, can reduce Turtle to only a 35s cooldown (though admittedly, that comes at the cost of an Endurance conduit slot, our legendary slot, Posthaste, and a PvP talent slot). This wasn’t done in isolation, and Blizzard has plenty of other knobs to tune if hunters as a whole, or BM in particular, needs more oomph in any given content type without leaving a grotesquely overtuned pet in its prior state.
Except that MS/Cunning is a rather broader field. There aren’t even any exotics that fall into that category. It’s still not incredible (only 3 families, rodents, raptors, and hyenas), but it’s better than only one family. And again, spirit beasts were more of a problem in PvE, and specifically group PvE, than in PvP. In raids, there literally weren’t any other rational options except for spirit beasts. Anything else you brought was innately weakening your performance and survivability. The only time most BM hunters swapped out the spirit beast in PvE was for the 2-3 times per M+ they needed lust, and only then if it was deemed worthwhile against drums and they lacked a shaman or mage.
Honestly I got through ur first tiny paragraph and skipped the rest realizing I don’t wanna continue the joke of a conversation as I realized you are naive enough to believe blizzard is gonna a buff our spec over the loss of pets moves. Have a nice life no common sense there
But it might as well also have been a matter of “time/resources required vs. time/resources available”.
If they saw that Spirit Beasts were an outlier compared to other pets, they could just as well have nerfed the potency of Spirit Mend in order to bring them down to the level of other beasts, not because it made us as Hunters overpowered, but because it was easier and it was a faster solution to just…take that one ability down, rather than looking at XX other ability power levels.
This wouldn’t exactly be a new phenomenon.
The problem with this logic is that you once again go back to “Spirit Beasts were so much better than other pets, so therefor it was justified to nerf Spirit Mend”.
BM survivability in PvE, was by no means a problem. During BfA, BM hunters were far from the class/spec combo with the highest survivability. Again, the problem wasn’t Spirit Mend itself. The problem was that other pets, were simply inferior to it. And rather than fixing this problem with other pets, they went the easy route and just nerfed Spirit Beasts.
To put it bluntly, it was worlds ahead of SV and MM. I’d rather any solution to survivability, if we need it increased, by class-wide, not some incredibly strong super-Exhilaration granted to just one spec.
I mean, fair enough, that’s how you want it to work.
I disagree, I always liked having Spirit Mend to be as strong as it was because, it made the ability feel more impactful in specific situations. Like I’ve mentioned before, in several cases throughout BfA, you could find yourself in a situation where you were taking increased damage and you knew that you could alleviate the healers by picking a pet with an ability that was powerful enough to make a difference.
And yes, ofc you can just add such extra utility/defensive capability directly into the class(you as the hunter). But if everything that is worthwhile can only be a part of the hunter, resulting in pets being nothing but mobile, permanent, DoTs allowing for a difference in aesthetics…
Welp we nerfed spirit beast. Guess all pvp hunters use ms and freedom pet. Ope wait now they are to strong let’s nerf ms and freedom pet. Ope look somehow bm got weaker well blizz can we get those buffs now…“NO”…oh ok then guess we’ll just stay weaker then sounds good but at least all out pets suck now. Horray fixed it
You can not run a spirit pet. It there a performance downside? Maybe. Does it make you happy to do so? Well then be happy.
My latest hunter has a certain RP in mind. And she rocks the warden owl from the birds of prey group. Sometimes I rock the raven from carrion bird family.
A few prior BM’s have been rocking hati and spirit cats. I needed a change. I’ve seen hati since out back in day 1. I like him but…its time for us to see other people lol.
NOw I have thought about tracking down the spirit owl. Probably not happening. The warden owl is part of the developing RP.
That and I don’t want to work out getting the fruit basket from WoD. TO get a non damaging agro getter to aggro the spirit owl and work out falling from a tree not dying lol.
Concussive Shot turns on auto attack, but only when casting at your target. Casting at your Focus avoids this issue, pulls the mob, and deals no damage.
Then you just have to work out how not to die in the process.
Feathermane with Updraft and dismiss when you hit the ground.
Disengage just before ground level.
Use the “tree method” (stand on top of a tree in the area, fly straight up, when you fall you land back on top of the tree and the shorter fall distance keeps you alive).
The problem with spirit mend is not about spirit mend at all.
Ofc, the ability provided a cool survavility resource.
The problem in here is that hunters survavility resources have been scarce; I mean, yeah, we have turtle, with long CD; exhilaration which is quite decent but also with long CD, a few traps which we can debate about effectiveness, and… That’s it?
Now, compare that to other classes, let’s say ret paladins, able to heal af not to mention bubbles (c’mon, compare bubble with turtle); DH who are able to heal a lot during combat due to the violet orbs absorption; and even warlocks are able to heal quite decently on demand absorbing enemy’s HP on demand.
Those 3 examples are without really thinking too much, but there are others.
And not to count that most of those examples, are able to take in QUITE A LOT much more dmg income.
Now Spirit Beast were used by a lot of BM due to the fact that they lacked such kind of healing options (maybe at open world where not really that important, but an important resource at pvp, mythic, and raids);
The argument “this is more powerful/picked than other specs; let’s do things fair, and nerf it to solve” is mediocre.
It doesn’t really solve the background issue.
I main hunter. I love hunter, and although I will probably go back to MM this expansion, give us something really cool to compensate both, the lack of that survavility and also to be at the same levels of Spirit Mend.
I also own other toons, like prot warrior, ret pally, enh shammy, DH, lvling up a wiz… And i honestly do not consider myself an all knowing about the game, but Imho I think we all agree that the ability was not OP, nor game breaking at all.
Ty for the nerfing solution, it was really effective.
I agree. That’s why I’d like the solution to that problem be something that improves our survivability class-wide, rather than one pet available to one spec. If spirit beasts are the “solution” to that issue, then MM and SV are SOL, and BM is locked into using that one specific pet family or just straight up sacrifice what used to be a huge increase to survivability (and group utility, for that matter).
Now that we agree, is it fair to take the only option available in order to survive a bit longer as other classes easily do and have at disposal - without even bringing a REAL solution for all the specs?
I mean, you (not you, blizzard) are taking my only way to get practical self heals, just to have not BM, but all Hunting Specs SOL, as you referred.
Otoh, I found your pet build proposition quite interesting, ALTHOUGH I would have loved that blizzard would have proposed something like that, instead of just nerfing to the ground something the class really needed.
Don’t want to be considered as a noxious guy, but i really think this wasn’t a cool way to fix things.
Also worth noting that clefthooves are only really the “best” option once they get Blood of the Rhino, which is somewhere between 50 and 60. Scalehides work just as well (arguably slightly better) until then, as do gorillas and core hounds.
Also worth noting, clefthooves and core hounds are exotic beasts, which cannot be tamed until level 39. Gorillas and scalehides can be tamed as soon as you get Tame Beast at level 5.
The lowest level scalehides that can be found are the kodo roaming around Mulgore, they start at level 1. If you’re leveling an alliance toon, you can find scalehides in more alliance-friendly areas starting at level 10. See this page for more details: https://www.wow-petopia.com/family.php?id=scalehide
Personally, yes, I think it was worth doing. Reducing the mechanic that was entrenching one pet well above the others was a change that needed to happen. If that leaves us in a rough spot on survivability, there are plenty of other knobs Blizzard can tune (the CD and potency of Exhil, CD on Turtle, CD and potency of Survival of the Fittest, etc), knobs that can be tuned by simple hotfix. I’m not terribly worried about it, tbh.
Um…Exhil? Spirit Mend isn’t, and shouldn’t, be your primary heal. It’s supposed to be a perk, not a central survival mechanism. The fact that you see it as your “only practical self-heal” reinforces even more that it needed nerfed. If it’s so powerful that you see it as your primary self-heal, rather than the class-baseline Exhil, there’s a serious problem.
Basically, I get it, no one likes nerfs, especially substantial nerfs to things they’ve come to depend on. But if that thing is a significant outlier, especially one that’s causing as much distortion to pet selection as it was, then yes, it needs to be addressed. We shouldn’t be retaining bad design just because people have come to depend on it. If we need survivability, we should be getting that from something central to the class, not from one of the nearly 60 pet families, and one that’s only available to BM no less.
It’s also worth noting, btw, that Spirit Mend still heals more than Exhil over the duration of its cooldown. Roughly twice as much, in fact.
I asked in the hunters discord trueshot lodge and they said exotic bonus abilities like blood of the rhino was moved to later levels its just gone for a moment at 60 we will have them again